Mental Health Commission Votes For
Action Council To Return Conference to SC

Contact: John Hutto, SCDMH (803) 898-8584

Columbia, S.C., November 9, 1999... Today at the
monthly meeting of the Mental Health Commission, Commission Vice-Chair
Douglas Gay announced that the commission has instructed State Mental
Health Director, Stephen M. Soltys, M.D., to contact the S. C. Action
Council and request that the council bring its Cross Cultural Mental
Health and Human Services Conference back to South Carolina for its year
2000 meeting. The Action Council recently announced its decision to move
its annual meeting to Georgia in support of the NAACP Confederate flag
boycott.

"We want the Action Council to remove the political
imprimatur from the conference so that it will retain its original
educational mission and its original location in South Carolina," said
Commissioner Gay. "The Department of Mental Health has long had a policy
of supporting employees who want to attend conferences related to their
field and which would offer a valuable educational experience that is free
of unnecessary political rhetoric. The Cross Cultural Conference has been
such an opportunity. However, the Action Council has taken the
regrettable step of publicly associating the 2000 Cross Cultural
Conference with a very controversial and purely political issue. It is
unfortunate because this action detracts from the otherwise valuable
contribution the conference makes," said Commissioner Gay.

Commissioner Gay went on to say that if the Action Council
refuses to move the conference back to South Carolina, then the Department
of Mental Health will be given no choice but to withhold any reimbursement
with state funds for employees attending the conference. Also, any
employee attending the conference will do so on an annual leave basis, not
on official leave.